The Illusion of Fear
by XfreakXninjaX
Summary: Ami Gamo comes from a rough family background, but her life soon changes drastically. Will this change be able to fill the emptiness that has etched its way into her soul? Or will it only cause the emptiness to engulf her completely? And just how does a certain Substitute Soul Reaper and his friends work their way into her story? *Currently under some damn intense revision*
1. Chapter 1

_**Author's Note: Alright, so I have decided that it was time for me to revamp my stories, especially this one. Instead of writing the story from a first-person point of view, I'm switching to third-person. I'm not going to change too terribly much story wise, mainly because I didn't really get to anything big yet, and because I still like my original idea for Ami. I'm just going to tweak a few things, and see how the changes work. Hopefully, everyone that liked the original version of the story will like this revamp even better, and I'm crossing my fingers that this revamp will bring in more followers because this is my least popular story and I'm trying to play around and see what it is that people didn't like about the original version. With that being said, please do leave me some feedback. Tell me if you love it, if you hate it, ask me any questions that you have and so on. We only got to chapter 9, so it shouldn't take me too long to catch back up with where we were. **_

_**Thank you to everyone that followed and favorited the original version of the Illusion of Fear, and I hope this revamp does Ami better justice than the original version. Again, I hadn't really revealed too much storyline wise in the original version, but I am making a few adjustments. I hope you enjoy, and again, please leave feedback! :)**_

_**Oh, by the way, I finally decided that this is going to be a Renji/OC story, but there will be some Uryū/OC elements.**_

Chapter One- Introduction to Ami Gamo

There is only so much punishment that one person can take. At some point, they just have to get away from all of that pain and suffering, and if for some reason that isn't possible for them, they'll certainly dream about their escape. They'll dream of things like freedom, happiness, and peace, of anything that doesn't include the suffering that they're going through. They may dream of people that help them find these things, or they may dream of places that they can go to and find them.

Ami Gamo has dreams like those. She likes to dream of a marsh, not a muddy and insect-filled swamp or bog, mind you, but of a small clearing within a forest. In this clearing there is a small hole of water, one just big enough for one or two people to fit into, and it's filled with clear water that isn't too hot or too cold. She likes to imagine that this clear pool of water would smell like the rain, clean and refreshing, a smell that can bring tranquility even to the most troubled of souls. Ami likes to dream of getting in the water and letting cascade around her to engulf her in a calming embrace. In her dreams she likes to lay her weary head against the edge of the pool and look out to the forest around her; the marsh would be covered in a very light and cool mist, and there would be exotic flowers of all sorts surrounding the pool, gracing her with their multicolored beauty. In the places without flowers, there would just be open forest floor, where the grass would be soaked with fresh morning dew. Ami's marsh would be surrounded by an inner circle of willow trees, but beyond them would be tall trees and numerous wide trees; the wide trees would block her marsh away from the rest of the world, and the tall trees would keep too much light from reigning in on her but would let enough of it through to keep the marsh from getting too cold. Ami's marsh is a place of rebirth where hardships can be shed instead for comfort. Ami's marsh is a place of peace and tranquility that the noises of the outside world can't reach. Ami's marsh is a place where she can find safety, where her pains just can't manage to reach her.

Sadly, Ami's marsh doesn't exist. She cannot bathe in the peaceful waters of her marsh; she cannot hide from the outside world in the comforting embrace of her marsh. She cannot gaze upon the beauty of her flowers, nor is she protected by her willow trees. Ami's marsh only exists in her head, and she would give anything to be able to spend just one second in it.

Instead of living in her marsh, Ami lives the life of a high school student in Karakura Town. From the outside, she just looks like a harmlessly weird girl who never says a word to anyone, who just looks at the ground and avoids everyone. She doesn't have any friends, but she doesn't have any enemies, either; people just leave her alone, which is a blessing and a curse for Ami. She longs to the feel the comfort of having another human being around her, but she wouldn't dare share her problems with anyone and take a chance on involving them in her troubles. She'd rather suffer alone than take a chance on someone else getting hurt besides her.

Ami's troubles come in the form of her family. She'd give anything for a caring and nurturing mother, for a father that would give his life to protect her, and for a brother that would look at her with anything except hate in his eyes. Instead, her father was a drunk that couldn't keep a steady job, who blamed all of his problems on his daughter and took his frustrations out on her physically. Her mother never did a thing to stop him, and even though she never physically abused Ami, the amount of verbal abuse that came out of the woman's mouth was atrocious. Ami's younger brother was the worst of all of them. He never hit Ami or screamed at her; instead, he just did nothing. He didn't care at all, and that hurt Ami more than any punch or insult.

Ami learned a long time ago that it was better if she just kept her mouth shut. She learned to stop screaming, to just endure the pain without showing any sign of weakness to her parents. Her silence seemed to deter them on occasion, but even when it did nothing to stop them, Ami refused to give them the satisfaction of seeing her cry again. She'd rather live a life of silence than do that, so she instead covered her wounds and refused to make a sound.

She never really knew why her family hated her so much. It could have had something to do with the religion they followed. She had found them kneeling on the ground and praying on occasion, but that was about the only thing she saw them do to practice the religion. They hadn't even told her the name of their religion; apparently, she was too unworthy to hear its name. She knew some of its practices and teachings though, and while some of them were relatively normal, she just couldn't wrap her head around some of the other ones. Some of them were downright asinine, like the one that said that women couldn't cut their hair, but her parents still made her follow the ridiculous rule, which was obvious every time she looked at her knee-length hair.

One of the main teachings of the religion was that all firstborns were supposed to be boys. Any firstborn that was a girl was considered to be bad luck, and families with these firstborn girls were damned to never prosper and they could possibly even die out. A teaching like this would seem ridiculous to a lot of people, but Ami's family seemed to take it very seriously. Maybe that's why they hated and abused Ami; maybe they were punishing her for all of the supposed bad luck that they had. Ami didn't really care why they did it, though, because all she wanted was for it to all just stop.


	2. Chapter 2

**Warning: There are some elements of abuse in this chapter, but this is the only chapter that they will be in.**

Chapter Two- Fire May Burn, But It Can Also Cleanse

Ami's days are never very eventful; some would even call them boring. Ami wouldn't go as far as to say that, though. She liked normalcy, and she would take as much of it as she could get during the day because she knew exactly what would happen when she went home. Any normalcy that she ever knew stopped right at her front door and chaos and pain and misery took its place. So what if nobody ever talked to her at school? So what if all of the teachers looked at her with so much pity in their eyes that it almost nauseated her? As long as nobody bothered her and caused her anymore pain, she would be perfectly fine with her normal, boring days.

She wasn't exactly alone, though. She couldn't see them when she was really young, but ever since her abuse started around the time she was seven or eight, Ami had been able to see the spirits of the dead. She didn't know why she could see them, or why she had started seeing them when her abuse began; at one point she thought that she had taken one too many blows to the head and some permanent damage had been caused, but that thought didn't last long. It may have been true to some extent, but Ami couldn't find it in herself to believe it. She liked the spirits too much to believe it. They were nice to her. They actually spoke to her. They never hit her. They were perfect.

The spirits were the only things that actually knew what Ami was going through at home. They didn't try treat her like a fragile doll because of it, though. Instead of pity, they looked at her with hope, like they believed that maybe one day someone or something would come along to end her suffering. The spirits treated her like she was an actual person instead of the hollow and emotionless being that everyone else saw her as. Being around the spirits eased Ami's pain, if only for a short time, and because of that, she would be forever grateful to them.

* * *

><p>One day, Ami lost all of her normalcy. At the surface it looked like any other day for her, but there was an ominous wind that seemed to follow her wherever she went. It sent chills down her spine and made her hands shake, and even the spirits seemed to be able to feel it. They seemed to be avoiding her like the plague that day, and Ami couldn't deny that a little part of her was sad about that. Still, it let her know that she wasn't just imagining the foreboding presence about her. None of her classmates seemed to feel it, but she was painfully aware of it, and as the day dragged on, it seemed to get worse and worse.<p>

She carried on like she normally did, though, even with the nagging feeling in the back of her head that something bad was about to happen (something worse than usual, that is). The ominous feeling never went away, and by the time that she was walking home from school she was shaking so bad that she could hardly walk and there was a lump in her throat that felt like it was suffocating her. Part of her wanted to go somewhere else, anywhere else, to some place other than that house, but she knew that that wasn't possible. She knew that she didn't have anywhere else to go, so she just carried on.

* * *

><p>Just as she shut the front door and started to reach down to take her shoes off, Ami felt a rough, calloused, large hand wrap around her throat. In an instant she couldn't breathe; the hand squeezed around her throat tighter than it ever had before. She knew that her father was shouting something at her as she fought to breathe, but she didn't pay any attention to it. The need for air was her most prominent thought, but with the way that his hand was wrapped around her neck, it didn't seem like she would get that air anytime soon. Her father was a particularly strong man, especially when he was drunk, so there wasn't much hope that she would actually break his hold from her neck.<p>

In the end, she didn't have to. When he was seemingly done screaming at her, he threw Ami against the wall and stormed off like a mad man. Ami's hand immediately went to her throat as she gasped for breath. From the corner of her eye, she saw a pair of feet, and as she looked up, she saw her younger brother staring down at her. There was something different about the look in his eyes; he usually looked at her with such a deep callousness, but not this time. This time, it was something much different and perhaps even worse. That cold blank look was replaced with something akin to the look that a starving wolf has when it has finally found prey to kill and devour. It was unsettling, to say the least, but her brother walked off before she could ask what was wrong.

Ami turned her face back to the floor once he left and shut her eyes as she continued to try to catch her breath. She couldn't claim that that had been the first time that her father had choked her, and she doubted that it would be the last. Something was different this time, though. So much more hate seemed to have radiated from him, and his grip had never been so tight. And then her brother…he had never had that look in his eyes before. She couldn't wrap her mind around it, and she didn't have the time to try to, either.

Heavy footsteps soon filled her ears, and as she looked up, something strange happened. Ami had given up feeling fear a long time ago. She found it to be pointless; fear never stopped her pain, it never stayed the hand of her father, and it just plainly did nothing. It was pointless and a waste of time. Ami had resigned herself to never fearing anything again, but on that day, on that fateful day, fear spread its way throughout her soul once again. She knew fear again because as soon as she looked up, she met the murderous eyes of her father, and this time, he had a knife.

* * *

><p>She had to have blacked out for a moment, because the next thing that Ami knew, she was running down the street. She felt light-headed and nauseated, and pain radiated throughout her torso. Her shirt was covered in something warm and wet, and a metallic sent flooded into her nose. She couldn't think of why she was running, but she knew that she couldn't stop. She didn't know why it was there, but fear was still sitting heavily on her.<p>

And then she slowly began to remember. She remembered the hand wrapped around her throat, and being thrown against the wall like she was trash. She remembered struggling to breathe, and she remembered the look of the ravenous wolf that had taken over her brother. She remembered the footsteps and then…then she remembered the knife. The knife had brought fear back to her, and she was shocked to feel it again after so long. She was so shocked that she couldn't even run, and she could hardly blink before he had grabbed her and brought the knife down…

Everything was a little blurry after that. She remembered someone screaming, and now that she thinks about it, it was probably her. She remembered him bringing the knife down a second time, but after that, she remembered being dropped. In the short moment that it took for her to hit the ground, Ami realized something. She realized that she did not want to die. She realized that she was scared and that she wanted to run. So as soon as she hit the ground, she got up and ran.

The blackness took over after that, and when she found consciousness again, she was running down the street. She wasn't sure how she was still running; it may have been adrenaline, but when she looked at how much blood was covering her, she just couldn't believe that any amount of adrenaline could have made up for that blood loss. She didn't question it too much more, though. She wasn't safe, not yet anyways. She wasn't far away enough from that man to think about anything other than running.

* * *

><p>The world was not completely oblivious to Ami's plight that night. Her bloodied and adrenaline-fueled run did not go unnoticed by many, living or dead. Spirits watched her from a distance, knowing that there was nothing that they could do, but still hoping that someone would help her. People watched her from their homes, too shocked by the sight of the bloody girl to try to run after her, but some of them had mind enough to grab their phones and call the nearest medical facility.<p>

Isshin Kurosaki had been receiving calls constantly for the past ten minutes. Some of the people's voices sounded shaky, others were obviously crying, but they all told him the same thing: there was a girl running down the street towards his clinic and she was covered in blood and leaving a trail of it behind her. By the sound of things, it wasn't likely that she would make it through the night.

"Ichigo! Go outside and watch for her!" Isshin called to his son. He couldn't go out to look for her just yet; he honestly wasn't really sure what to do for her. If she was as bad off as she sounded, then it was doubtful that he had the resources to save her. But he was still her only hope, because there was no way that he could get her to the hospital before she bled out.

"Dad, she's coming!" his daughter Karin called out. As Isshin ran towards the door, Yuzu rushed past him holding her hands over her mouth and Karin was quick to follow her. When he was finally outside, he couldn't blame his daughters one bit for running away. The sight was gruesome.

Ichigo Kurosaki was in complete shock. He didn't know what to expect when his father told him the there was a girl running down the street towards them covered in blood, but this he was expecting least of all. He knew this girl, she was one of his classmates. Her name was Ami Gamo, and he couldn't for the life of him think of why anyone would want to hurt her. Sure, she may have seemed weird at points, but he figured that she was just shy and quiet. She had never done anything to anybody, so why was she the one running towards him?

She wasn't running for much longer. She had almost reached the clinic, but her blood loss had finally gotten to her. Right before Ichigo's eyes, the bloodied girl collapsed onto the street and didn't get back up. To his credit, Ichigo was quick to shake off his shock and run to the girl, although his shock quickly came back once he got a closer look to her. She was covered in so much blood, and he could see exactly where it was coming from. It wasn't difficult for him to figure out that they were stab wounds; one started right above her left hip and dragged up to the bottom of her ribs, and the other was a slash that started at her left shoulder and went to her sternum. It was gruesome, and he knew that she shouldn't be alive.

Isshin saw that his son was frozen as he stood by the girl, and Isshin was as well, but for different reasons. He had lost the ability to see spirits a long time ago, and because of that he couldn't sense people's reiatsu anymore, either, but he was also far from ignorant. Physically speaking, this girl should have been dead, but there was something, something not human, keeping her alive. Even in his state, he could see that there was something different about the girl. It may have had nothing to do with spirits or reiatsu, but there was something strange around her. It gave him hope, though, because an idea suddenly came to him.

Isshin quickly ran back into his clinic to grab a few things and ran back outside to his son. He had to act quickly; he knew it was a longshot, but he hoped like hell that his idea would work. He quickly ran past Ichigo and knelt down to pick the girl up, only turning to his son for a quick moment to tell him to go inside and look after his sisters. After that, Isshin took off running down the street.

He had never run so fast in his life, and if he had, then it had been a very long time ago. He knew he didn't have much time, and better yet, that she didn't have much time. He recognized the uniform that she was wearing, and he knew that she was from Ichigo's school. If he had to guess based on his son's reaction, they were probably classmates. He couldn't deny that a certain amount of anger bubbled inside him at the thought of someone hurting a girl his son's age this badly, but he knew he couldn't dwell on it just yet. She didn't have much time left, but maybe, just maybe, his plan would work. He could only hope that the shopkeeper was where he was supposed to be.

And thankfully, he was. Isshin could see Kisuke Urahara standing outside of his shop, like he was waiting for him. The shopkeeper's eyes were blocked from view by his hat, but Isshin could tell by looking at him that the man was in a beyond serious state and that he knew why Isshin was coming to him.

No words were exchanged between the two. As Isshin reached him, Kisuke merely turned back towards his shop and led Isshin inside. He brought him to a room in the back that had a mat laid out on the floor. Tessai Tsukabishi was already in the room, and as soon as Isshin laid the girl on the mat, the large man held his hands over her and began to try to heal her with Kido.

"Can you save her?" Isshin asked, breaking the silence that had momentarily taken over the room. It took a moment for Tessai to reply.

"I believe so, but it may take some time," he finally answered. Isshin couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief, but now that the girl's chances of survival were actually existent, he couldn't help but let anger and speculation take over him.

"It's been a long time since I've seen blade wounds like this," he commented, looking over to Kisuke.

"Especially in the World of the Living," Kisuke agreed.

"Who would do something like this?" Isshin muttered.

"She didn't tell you anything?" Kisuke asked him.

"No, she collapsed before I could reach her," he told him. "Kisuke…am I crazy or…?"

"You're not crazy," the shopkeeper told him. "I don't what it is, but there's something around her. It's like…like it's being pulled into her soul or something."

"What do you mean?"

"It was like some kind of haze was settled around her, but as soon as Tessai started healing her, it looked like it started to be pulled into her," the shopkeeper explained. "I've never seen anything like it, but it may have very well saved her."

"She's healing faster than I thought," Tessai commented.

"I wonder why," Isshin hummed. "Do you think it has something to do with the haze?"

"It could," Kisuke told him. "But there's no way to find out at this point. It's almost completely gone."

"It looks like it's disappearing in time with her wounds healing," Tessai informed them.

"I've never seen a normal human heal this fast," Kisuke pointed out.

"A normal human would have been dead by now," Isshin reminded him. At that, the three men grew quiet again. The whole thing only took about ten minutes, but those were the longest ten minutes of Isshin's life. In the end, though, it worked.

* * *

><p>Ami had never felt so sore in her entire life. At first, she didn't know why she was so sore, but it wasn't long before she remembered. Remembering everything just confused her, though. Why wasn't she in excruciating pain instead of just being sore? Better yet, why was she still alive?<p>

She couldn't even begin to guess where she was. It certainly did not smell like home, but that was a good thing at this point. Instead of smelling like alcohol, this place smelled sweet, almost like candy, with a certain fresh edge to it that she couldn't distinguish. She knew she wasn't lying on a bed; what she was laying on wasn't uncomfortable by any means, but it was too hard to be a bed. She also noticed a certain warmth radiating throughout her torso. She actually felt strangely calm wherever she was, even if she had no clue was where that was.

Her confusion only grew when she opened her eyes. The first thing she noticed was a green light covering her chest and stomach. She followed that green light to a pair of hands hovering over her, hands that belong to a rather large, darkly tanned man with glasses. There were two other people in the room, one man in full green and another in what looked to be a doctor's coat. She had no clue who they were, but the man in the doctor's coat had a familiar presence about him.

"Ami," was the first word that came out of her mouth. She had said it because she thought she heard one of them ask for her name. She wasn't too sure, though, because she was still a bit dazed, not to mention confused as well.

"Ami, do you know who did this to you?" the man in green asked her. She didn't want to answer that question, she asked them one instead.

"Who are you?" she muttered.

"Ah, how rude of me. My name is Kisuke Urahara. The one healing you is Tessai, and this is Isshin Kurosaki," the man in green told her, pointing to the other men as he named them.

"Kurosaki? Are you…related to Ichigo?" Ami wondered.

"Ah, so you do know him," Isshin mumbled. "Yes, I'm his father, actually."

"Ami, do you know who did this to you?" Kisuke repeated. Ami was quiet for a moment, thinking whether she should tell them or not.

"Ami, you can trust us," Isshin assured her. "We-"

"My father," she whispered, cutting Isshin's next statement off. Isshin felt like he wanted to puke, and Kisuke and Tessai weren't doing much better.

Ami wasn't really sure why she told them, but she felt like she could trust them. Obviously they were helping her, which is more than anyone else ever did, so she decided to give them the benefit of the doubt. Plus, there was the slight chance that maybe, by some miracle, they could help he away from her family. There was no way she could go back home now, because they would surely kill her the next time.

"Your f-father?" Isshin repeated. Ami only nodded. More silence filled the room.

"It is done," Tessai solemnly announced, and the suddenly the green light over Ami stopped. She looked down, seeing her bloody shirt, but there were no longer any wounds to go with that blood.

"A-amazing," she muttered. "T-thank you."

"It was nothing," Tessai assured her, and once again the room was quiet again. There was an obvious tension in the room, and Ami felt like it was suffocating her.

"Can I…go outside?" Ami asked them. "I need some…air."

"Of course we can," Kisuke told her, trying to give her a smile, but it looked more sad than anything. He held out his hand to her, and Ami took it wordlessly.

"Care to join us, Isshin?" Kisuke called, knocking the man out of stupor.

"Ah, yeah, I will," Isshin replied, following Kisuke as he led the girl through his shop.

Ami took a deep breath as she stepped outside. It was a relatively warm night, but rain clouds were starting to form in the sky, threatening to unleash torrents at any moment. It was nice, though, and to Ami, it seemed to make the air smell fresh and clean. She was oddly at peace considering what had just happened to her. For some reason, she felt like a weight had just been lifted off of her shoulders.

"Is that smoke?" she heard Isshin mutter, and as she looked off into the distance, sure enough, a black mass was curling its way through the air. It was thick and moving fast, as if something large was burning.

"Is that…the direction I came from?" Ami asked Isshin, and nodded in reply. She knew that the chances of it were unlikely, but she couldn't shake the feeling, maybe even the hope, that it was her house that was burning. There was certainly enough smoke for it to be coming from a burning house, but it was impossible for her to tell from where she was.

"Can…we go see?" she asked them. She didn't even say what she wanted to see, but Isshin knew where she wanted to go. He could tell how apprehensive she got when asked them the question, as if she was scared of something. If her father had really attacked her, then the only thing that she should have been scared of at the moment was him, and to see him she would have to go home.

"Are you sure?" he asked her. It took her a moment, but she finally nodded in agreement. He looked over to Kisuke and the shopkeeper nodded his head, as well. While they doubted that the fire was burning anything important, they still figured that if they went in the direction of Ami's home, they might run into her father, and if they did, they fully intended to give him a taste of his own medicine.

* * *

><p>That ominous feeling was following Ami again, but it was different this time. Instead of trying to hold her back from going home, this time it seemed to push her forward, like it knew something that she didn't. She felt safe with the two men that were accompanying her, so maybe that was why she wasn't affected so badly by the feeling as she had been before. Instead of shaking in apprehension, she felt like she was shaking with anticipation, and the shiver that ran down her spine was one of sheer excitement.<p>

The smoke cloud kept getting closer and closer, until they finally reached the source. Isshin and Kisuke couldn't believe the sight before them, especially when Ami pointed out what the pile of ash used to be. As it turned out, that little ominous cloud did know something that Ami didn't.

She couldn't have been gone for much more than an hour, but they said that the fire was more intense than anything they had ever seen before. It spread quickly and turned everything it touched to ashes just as fast. They said that the people inside hadn't been able to escape, and as she looked over the ashes that had once been her home, Ami felt relieved. She knew that she shouldn't have felt that way; her family had just died. Maybe she was truly emotionless; maybe she was a psychopath. Either way, Ami still felt like the world had just crawled off of her shoulders. She didn't know what she was going to do, but she knew that they could no longer hurt her. She felt free. No, she didn't just feel free, she **was **free. It was as if the very fire that killed her family had also lit another fire within her soul, but this fire cleansed her soul instead of destroying it. For the first time in her life, Ami's future actually looked bright.

_**Author's Note: Again, I hope you like the revision so far. As to how Ami talks, she doesn't necessarily have a speech impediment, but she does have a bit of a stutter on occasion, and she takes a lot of pauses when she speaks. She hasn't exactly spoken that much over her lifetime, and obviously her abuse is going to affect how she communicates with people and whatnot. Originally I had planned on her getting rid of her stutter as she opened up to people, but I think I might just leave it as a reminder of what she went through. **_

_**Anyways, I hope you enjoyed, and please, tell me what you think so far! It'll be a great help to the revision if you do!**_


	3. Chapter 3

**_Author's Note: A special thank you to awakedead0 for the follow and favorite! _**

**_I hope you guys enjoy the newly revised chapter, and please do leave me some feedback!_**

Chapter Three- Readjustments

Ami was at a bit of a loss. She didn't know what to do with herself. Right after the fire, she was busy dealing with the fact that she had just become an orphan, and a homeless orphan at that, but she had resolved that problem shortly afterwards, so now she didn't have anything to keep her mind occupied.

Kisuke had let her stay at his shop the night of the fire, and the next day she took the initiative to call her aunt who lived a few hours away from Karakura Town. The first thing that Ami told her aunt was that there had been an accident and that her parents and brother had been killed in said accident. The woman had been silent at first, but once she let the news sink in, she didn't really seem all too phased about the death of her brother, his wife, and one of his children. She seemed more concerned with the child that was still living, and she made plans to go to Karakura Town the next day to see what she could to help Ami.

Until then, Ami stayed at Kisuke's sho[ for another night, and the shopkeeper actually seemed rather happy to have Ami staying with him. That made Ami glad, because she would have hated to impose. She also felt safe in the shop, which was another reason that she was happy to stay there. She spent most of her time by herself, and Kisuke or Tessai would occasionally come to check on her. She had met Ururu and Jinta, but only briefly, and they seemed to be too busy doing chores around the shop to pay her any mind.

Ami's aunt, Mina, came to Karakura Town the next day and met Ami at Kisuke's shop. Ami had been shocked when the woman greeted her with a hug, but the woman's embrace was very warm and comforting, so Ami didn't question it. Again, the woman didn't really seem to be phased by her brother's death; instead, she almost seemed happy for Ami. As it turned out, Ami's aunt had actually left the family religion quite a few years back. Afterwards she had gone to medical school and ended up marrying an American that was also a doctor. Out of curiosity, Ami had asked her aunt of she had been the firstborn child of her family, but the woman only smiled and shook her head, saying that Ami's father had been the firstborn of her family. Still, the woman seemed to be fully aware of what Ami had gone through, and she was glad that the girl no longer had to face any of it.

To Ami, it seemed like the spent hours talking. Well, her aunt Mina did most of the talking, but Ami certainly didn't mind listening to her aunt's life story. It was interesting to see how things had turned out for her after she had left the religion. It kind of gave Ami hope that maybe one day she would able to have a life like that, a normal one, one that wasn't ruled by misery.

At the end of the day, Ami's aunt had offered her a place at her home, but after some thought, Ami declined the offer. She would have liked to spend more time with her aunt, but Karakura Town was her home, and now that her family wasn't there, she hoped to have a fresh start in her hometown. Mina understood her niece's reasoning, and she agreed to help Ami financially as long as she stayed in school. She set Ami up at an apartment, bought her some food and clothes, gave her some extra money for any other expenses she might have, and then she left back to her home. She gave Ami a parting hug and wished her luck, and with that, she was gone, leaving Ami to her thoughts.

She was fine at first, but after a while, her mind seemed to keep going back to the fire. She remembered the feeling of relief that she got right after she discovered the fate of her family, and felt utterly disgusted with herself. She knew she had every right to hate them, especially her father, but she knew that just because she hated them didn't mean that they deserved to die. Her father should have been put in jail for the rest of his life, and her mother and brother locked in a padded room, but surely they didn't deserve to die.

She felt so conflicted with herself. She didn't know whether to mourn or rejoice; she didn't know if she should feel victorious or guilty. She didn't know what to do with herself. In the end, Ami also realized that she knew next to nothing about herself. She didn't know what she liked to do, what she liked to eat, anything. What kind of music did she like? What was her favorite color? Hell, what was her favorite kind of food? She didn't know any of it, and at that point, she felt like she didn't know anything at all. She was stuck in a state of confusion and she didn't know how to get out of it.

She was allowed to take a few days away from school in order to "cope" with the accident and her loss, and for the most part, Ami just laid in her bed and stared at the ceiling. She was trying to think of something, just one thing, that she knew about herself, but she couldn't think of anything. She realized that after fifteen years of being alive, that she had never actually lived, and she knew just whose fault that was.

Only one thing had been salvaged from the ashes of her old home. It was an old picture of her family, one taken around the time that her brother had been born. The old frame had been ruined, but someone had been kind enough to replace it. For the most part, the photo was still intact, except for one spot that had been singed through. Ironically, it was Ami's face that had been burnt off the picture; her parent's faces were unscathed, as was her brother's. Ami found herself staring at this picture as she contemplated how little she had actually lived.

Emotions were not Ami's forte, so she had a hard time figuring out how she should feel about this new revelation. She knew that she shouldn't be happy about it, and she definitely wasn't. She couldn't really tell what emotion it was that was boiling up inside her, but it wasn't very pleasant. It was like a raging fire that wanted to do nothing more than consume everything around it. As she continued to think of all the wrong that her family had done to her, the fire kept blazing and growing inside of her until it was a raging inferno. That's when she realized what she was feeling; it was anger. It was a deep, resonating anger, and it was the strongest emotion that Ami had ever felt in her entire life. She couldn't believe that they had done that to her. She was their daughter, yet they hated her and wanted her dead. No, she would not mourn them. She would not rejoice, either. She would do nothing, because that was exactly what they deserved. Nothing.

Ami crawled off her bed and walked over to the bookcase where the picture was perched. She did not want this picture anymore. She hated it like she hated the people that were in it. So she threw it away. She would get new pictures someday, but certainly not of them. They would be happy pictures and not ones filled with hate and sorrow; maybe if she was lucky enough to make friends, she would take pictures of them. Maybe Isshin and Kisuke and Tessai would let her take a picture of them, so she could have a visual reminder of the people that had saved her that night.

Ami felt a little younger after she threw the picture away. Before, she had felt ages older than she actually was because of her hectic life, but now, now she actually felt like the fifteen year old that she was. She wondered if she looked different, as well; when she looked in her mirror, she noticed some slight differences. She didn't look as tired as she normally did, and there was a certain light in her lavender eyes that hadn't been there before. It wasn't enough for her, though. She wanted to look as relieved as she felt, so she decided to get rid of one of the main things that her parents had given her so much grief about: her hair. So, with a pair of sharp scissors, Ami cut away at her lavender locks, feeling more and more relived with every lock that fell.

* * *

><p>Ichigo Kurosaki stared at the empty seat in front of him as if it were some kind of monster. He knew that she gotten a few days off from school in order to deal with everything, but he was still worried. He had seen her injuries that night, and he knew that she shouldn't still be alive. Everyone else seemed to have forgotten, though. Even his father seemed to have forgotten everything that had happened. When he came back home that night, Ichigo asked him where Ami was, and Isshin merely looked at him like he had grown two heads and asked him who the hell Ami was. Nobody seemed to remember seeing the bloody girl run down the street, and that really confused Ichigo.<p>

But, even if it did confuse him, it wasn't his biggest concern. His biggest concern was how Ami was doing, and with each new day he kept hoping that it would be the day that she would finally come back to school so he would know that she was alright. It was starting to look less and less probably that it would be that day, though. The clock was ticking, and it was getting closer and closer for school to start. Ichigo turned his head and watched as the rain poured down outside. Ironically, it had been raining almost non-stop since the night of the fire, and it didn't look like it would let up any time soon.

* * *

><p>Ami was lost. She was going to try to go back to school that day, but she hadn't accounted for the fact that she had no idea how to get to her school from her new apartment. She was completely and utterly lost, and it was raining to top it all off. Luck was in her favor, though. Some sweet old lady had been outside checking her mail when Ami passed by, and luckily the elderly woman new exactly which way the high school was.<p>

Ami knew she was close to being late, so she ran like she had never ran before. She refused to be late on her first day back; it just wouldn't set a good tone for things, and she really wanted things to start back on the right track. She could make it, though. The school was right in front of her, and soon enough she was busting through the front doors like a bat out of hell. She took those flights of stairs like a champion, and she stood outside the door right on time as she quickly pulled her raincoat off.

"Alright, I guess we should get things started," she heard Ochi-sama begin, which caused Ami's hand to freeze right as she was about to open the door. Dread washed over the lavender-haired girl. She seriously contemplated going back home and trying again the next, but she decided against it. She might as well go ahead and get things over with. She was hoping that by some miracle, she'd be able to sneak in without anyone noticing her, and even though the door made no noise as she opened it, she still had no such luck. As soon as the door was fully open, it seemed like every eye in the room was glued to her. It was kind of creepy, actually.

"Ami?" Ochi-sama muttered, staring at the girl in disbelief.

"S-sorry, Ochi-sama. I…got lost. I'm not u-used to the area I live in…yet," Ami explained. Her teacher didn't say anything in reply, and just kept staring at the girl.

"O-Ochi-sama?" Ami stuttered. With a twitch of her head, the teacher seemed to physically snap out of her trance.

"Sorry, Ami. You just look so different," the teacher pointed out. She wasn't wrong, either; the hair that had once gone well past Ami's waist now didn't even reach her shoulders. It was cut evenly and straight to the bottom of her jaw all the way around her head in a sort of bob-styled haircut. It didn't look bad by any means, but it was certainly different.

"I, um, n-needed the change," Ami told her, trying to give her teacher a small smile in the process. It wasn't much of a smile, but it seemed to elate the brunette teacher.

"Well, I like it! You're right on time, Ami, so take a seat and we'll get started!" Ochi-sama announced, and after giving her teacher a small bow Ami quickly walked to her seat and sat down, apparently oblivious of the orange-haired teen that was staring holes in the back of her head.

* * *

><p>Time had never been so avidly against Ichigo. She was finally back, but she gotten there so late that he hadn't the chance to ask her how she was before class started. And to be honest, he was really curious. But time decided to work against his curiosity, because it seemed as if the minutes until lunch were ticking by slower and slower. Patience had never really been his strong suit, but this was just getting ridiculous.<p>

To everyone else, though, the day seemed to be going by fast. It even seemed to go by fast for Ami, who figured her day would go by at an agonizingly slow pace just because of how much school she had missed. But it didn't, and it seemed like she could hardly blink before it was time for lunch. Most of her classmates seemed to rush out of the room, but a few, including her, lagged behind.

"Ami."

Ami turned around, only to come face to face with Ichigo Kurosaki. For the most part, he looked calm, but there was a certain annoyed twitch in his eye. Ami kind of found Ichigo to be intimidating because of the broody way he carried himself, so she hoped that he wasn't annoyed at her.

"Kurosaki…san," she greeted, throwing in the higher honorific just in case. Ichigo looked at her like she was crazy.

"No, just, no, Ami," he muttered. "Just leave it at Ichigo."

"A-alright, I-Ichigo," Ami conceded. It felt a little rude to her, but she hardly wanted to invoke any anger from him, so she just went with it.

"How are you holding up, Ami?" he asked her, his annoyed expression being traded for a more concerned one.

"I'm…I'm fine, thank y-you," she told him.

"Are you sure? You were pretty injured," Ichigo reminded her. Ami was quiet for a moment. She had thought it strange, but Kisuke had told her just to pretend like her injuries never happened. He assured her that things would be better if she did, and now that she thought about, Ichigo seemed to be the only one that had even mentioned her injuries. So, she decided to take Kisuke's advice.

"What injuries?" Ami asked him. The poor boy looked like he wanted to flip a table over.

"Are you…serious?" he grumbled, with the annoyed look taking over his face again. Ami only gave him a nervous nod in reply.

"What the hell," he muttered, looking away from his classmate.

"What the hell are you doing, Ichigo? Trying to scare the poor girl?" someone shouted, which did more harm than good since it actually did scare Ami.

"What the hell Tatsuki?" Ichigo asked the girl that had made her way over to them. "I was just asking her how she holding up!"

"Really? Because she looks scared to me," Tatsuki pointed out. Ami really did look terrified, but it wasn't because of Ichigo. Tatsuki had been the one to scare Ami when her booming voice seemed to shake her to the bone. She figured she would keep that to herself, though. There was no need to try to anger the girl further.

"Gamo-chan!" The happy cheer cut off any further argument between Tatsuki and Ichigo because it was followed by an orange-haired girl bounding over towards them and Ami.

"O-Orihime-chan?" Ami stuttered. Said girl stood right in front of Ami, gave her a very forced serious look, and proceeded to bow until her face was nearly parallel with the floor.

"I'm sorry for your loss, Gamo-chan," Orihime told her.

"Orihime, you scared her more!" Tatsuki admonished her friend.

"Hm?" Orihime hummed, standing upright to look at Ami's face, only to find that the girl did indeed look slightly more terrified than she had before.

"I'm sorry, Gamo-chan! I didn't mean to scare you!" Orihime apologized.

Ami just wasn't having too good of luck that day. Usually people never spoke to her, but now not one but three people were trying to communicate with her, and she just plainly wasn't sure what to do.

"See, it wasn't just me!" Ichigo snipped to Tatsuki, who gave him a glare that would have stopped a weaker man in his place.

"You little-" Tatsuki stopped her rant when a soft and quiet voice made its way through the air.

"Thank you, Orihime-chan," Ami finally replied. A large smile spread itself across Orihime's face, and for the first time in her life, Ami was able to share in someone's happiness, because a smile broke out on her face, too.

* * *

><p>Ami decided to go to Urahara's shop once school finally let out. If anything, she just wanted to let him know that she was doing fine; part of her doubted that he was actually that concerned about her anymore, but another part of her hoped that one of the men that had helped to save her still cared enough to worry about her. So with that faint hope, Ami made her way towards the shop.<p>

It didn't take her very long to reach the shop, and once she was standing in front of it she saw that Jinta and Ururu were both outside taking care of some chores. The red-headed boy was the first to notice her.

"Who the heck are you?" he demanded, and Ami just froze. She was certainly not expecting that. She knew that she had only briefly met the two children, but she still didn't expect them to forget her so soon. She didn't think she was that forgettable; just how many people were there in Karakura Town with purple hair? She figured it made her stand out like a sore thumb, but apparently not…

"Jinta, it's Ami-san," Ururu reminded him, her soft voice barely loud enough to be heard.

"No, it's not! There's no way!" Jinta argued. "Her hair was longer!"

Ami wouldn't have surprised if the boy's voice had carried all the way down the block. She was standing a good bit away from him, but it sounded like he was right beside of her shouting. She was somewhat amazed, though, at how some people's voices could be so loud. It made them seem so strong and proud, and she found herself to be a bit envious of them. She liked it, though, even if it did make her ears ring a little.

"Just what are you two…" Kisuke started as he and Tessai walked outside to see what all of the commotion was about. He stopped dead in his tracks once he saw the lavender eyed girl staring back at him.

"~Ami-chan!" he practically cooed, quickly hopping over to the girl and enveloping her in a bone crushing hug. Once he let the confused girl go, he happily pulled out his little fan and held it in front of his face. Ami didn't question it; she should have, but she didn't. She figured any explanation that he would give her would only confuse her even more.

"~Ami-chan, what can I do for you? How have you been?" Kisuke asked her, dragging her inside the shop in the process.

"I-I've been fine," Ami told him, stunned out how he was dragging to one of the back rooms that was in his shop. If memory served her correct, then it was the same rom that they had been in the night of the fire, which was also the room she stayed in until her aunt came.

"Please, take a seat Ami-chan," Kisuke offered as he shut the door behind them. It was almost like he was expecting her, because there was a table and a few mats already set in the room; they hadn't been there when she left nearly a week ago.

"Now, Ami, there are a few things I need to ask you. I would have asked you while you were staying here, but I figured you needed some time to let things set in," he began, sitting down across the table from her. Ami just blinked and slowly nodded her head. It was beyond her what he had in mind to ask her, but she owed him a great debt, so she would listen to him and answer his questions as best she could.

"This will sound strange, Ami, but I need to know, so bear with me. Do you see spirits?"

Ami felt like a deer in headlights. Any reply that she had for him immediately got stuck in her throat. The world seemed to be at a standstill to her, and her mind was reeling. Was she…not crazy? Was she not the only one that could see them? Could Kisuke see them? What Tessai, and Jinta, and Ururu? Could they see them, too? Was she really not as alone as she thought in this world? Were there others like her? So many questions, so many answers that she needed, yet she could hardly even answer the question that had been asked of her.

'Is he trying to mess with me?' Ami though to herself. Surely, surely he wouldn't be trying to make a fool out of the poor girl. But there had to have been netter ways of doing that. Who just asks something like that out of the blue?

"How long, Ami?" Kisuke asked her. Her silence and the stunned look on her face was enough to tell that she did in fact see spirits. If he had to guess, though, he'd say that she knew absolutely nothing else about the spirit world.

"I…um," the girl stuttered. She was obviously having a hard time with this, but if he was going to help her, then Kisuke needed a few answers.

"It's alright, Ami. Just take your time," he assured her.

"I-it's just…It started…when he-m-my father started to…"Ami couldn't even find the right words to answer him with. How do you tell someone something like that? It just…wasn't an easy thing for her to do. She couldn't just come out and say 'well, you say, Urahara-san, I started seeing the spirits of the dead when my father decided to use me as a punching bag'. It should have been that simple, but it just wasn't.

Kisuke seemed to understand what she meant, though. The poor girl didn't exactly have a way a way with words, but it didn't take a genius to figure out what she meant when she mentioned her father. Her answer did confuse him, though. Why hadn't she seen them before her abuse started? What was it about her abuse that triggered her to seeing spirits? Stress did a lot to people, but it didn't cause normal humans to just start seeing spirits out of the blue. Maybe she had been on the verge of death before, when she was younger, but she had survived and kept seeing spirits afterwards. Or maybe, by some small chance, there was something in this girl's heritage that caused her to be spiritually aware. He knew he'd probably figure it out, but it would take some time.

"Boss, there's a customer here," Tessai called through the door, knocking Kisuke out of his thoughts.

"Right, well, I need to go take care of something, Ami. I'll be back in a bit!" He seemed overly cheery when he left, but Ami knew that the shopkeeper had something on his mind. He'd been too quiet after she tried to answer him. Maybe there really was something wrong with her. She didn't know, and she felt like she never would. She was starting to feel lost again, like she was slowly starting to lose the hold that she had just gotten on her life. She needed some air; the room felt like it was closing in on her and suffocating her. She knew Kisuke said he'd be back, but surely he wouldn't mind if she stepped out for a moment…

She felt like she was going to hyperventilate. No, maybe it wasn't something that drastic. It felt like there a weight on her chest, though. It getting heavier, too, and her eyes felt really sore for some reason. When she finally walked out of the room and towards the exit, she felt something wet roll down her face. She brought her hand up to wipe whatever it was away, only to see that it was some clear liquid. She was stunned for what seemed like the tenth time that day. Was that a tear? Was she actually crying? Why on earth would she be crying?

She was so distraught by her tears that Ami didn't even notice the two people walking towards her until they were almost right by her.

"Oh, I was walking by and I saw this cute little shop and I just couldn't resist coming in!"

The sound of the woman's voice hit Ami like a bullet. It seemed to pierce through her very soul, and Ami let out a strangled gasp in surprise. Something happened, though. As soon as the piercing sensation hit her from the woman's voice, Ami could have sworn she saw a light purple light flicker around her. It was brief, so there was a good possibility that she may have been imagining it, but as soon as Kisuke and his customer rounded the corner, Ami knew that the light had to have actually been there.

Kisuke stopped as soon as he saw her, but the woman didn't. It was like she couldn't even see Ami and Kisuke held out his hand as he tried to warn the woman that she was about to run into the young girl, but he couldn't get the words out fast enough. She didn't run into Ami, though. No, she instead went through her.

Ami was shocked. Kisuke was shocked, as well. The woman was completely oblivious to it all as she let herself out of the shop. Kisuke just stared at Ami for a moment, before he finally pointed to something on her. The wide-eyed girl slowly looked down, only to see that the light purple light actually had been there, and that it was still there, and that it had emanated from her chest. To be more specific, it had emanated from the glyph that had etched its way onto her chest, right over her sternum, and was glowing through her shirt.

Ami was starting to feel like she should have just stayed home that day...


End file.
